At least “179 bodies” were buried Tuesday in a “common grave” dug in the al-Chifa hospital complex, its director announced to AFP, specifying that among them were seven premature babies who died due to lack of electricity to keep them alive.
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“We were forced to bury them in a mass grave,” said Doctor Mohammed Abou Salmiya.
“There are bodies littering the aisles of the hospital complex, and the refrigerated rooms of the morgues are no longer supplied” with electricity, because not a drop of fuel has entered the Gaza Strip since the start of the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on October 7, he added.
On Tuesday, “a woman and a man in intensive care died,” reported Doctor Abou Salmiya, bringing to 29 the number of intensive care patients who died since the power cut in al-Chifa on Saturday.
A journalist working with AFP inside the hospital, the largest in the Gaza Strip, reported that the smell of decomposing bodies was overpowering.
AFP
Fighting and airstrikes continued throughout the night, he added, but less intensely than in previous nights.
Israeli tanks massed Tuesday at the gates of al-Chifa, considered by Israel to be a strategic Hamas hideout.